


Briar Cradle

by nilchance



Series: hunter!AU [3]
Category: EverymanHYBRID, Slender Man Mythos, Supernatural
Genre: Demonic Possession, Frottage, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2012-11-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:05:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Briar Cradle

Jeff wakes up when Evan crawls on top of him. 

Short as Evan is, he’s all muscle, and his weight presses Jeff deep into the couch cushions. The metal ribs of the pull-out bed dig into Jeff’s back. Up close, the upholstery still carries the ghost of Jessa’s perfume. 

There’s a clunk as Evan puts his knife down on the coffee table, jostling Jeff’s mug of coffee.

It takes Jeff a moment to puzzle out why he’s in the living room instead of his bedroom. Then he remembers the cuts on Alex’s arms, Evan shaking him awake, the shrieking rage of the thing in Alex’s closet. Peroxide and butterfly bandages and gauze, Alex half-asleep with his head against the bathroom wall as Evan wrapped his wounds, and Jeff hovering uselessly.

The TV is on but muted, _The Dark Knight_ on DVD; it’d been Jeff’s intention to stay awake in case Alex needed him. Jeff’s intentions aren’t worth much these days.

Jeff jerks upright. “Is it back?”

“No, dude. It’s cool.” Evan presses Jeff back into the cushions, following him down. Jeff can feel the flexing strength of Evan’s arms on either side of him, Evan’s bony elbows against his ribs. “Alex is crashed out and the dog’ll bark if that fucking thing turns up.”

“Okay.” Jeff blinks at the TV, trying to wake up. He’s been sleeping a lot since they got back from Centralia, taking Ambien, calling out of work, pretending not to hear when Alex tried to get him to eat. (Holding the box cutter, testing the edge.) It seems like he should be able to stay awake now, when he wants to. “Thanks. You going home?”

That’s a stupid question. Then again, it would be like Evan to snuggle up on Jeff only to tell him that he’s leaving. Evan’s always doing shit that leaves Jeff boggling, a walking disruption, and God, Jeff is grateful for him. Jeff is grateful for Vinnie and Evan both, even if how much he needs them hurts his pride and spooks him bad. 

People leave. People die. Doesn’t he know that by now?

Their faces are too close together, too intimate. It feels like Evan is staring down to Jeff’s bones, the inside of his fucked-up head. Evan’s hair brushes Jeff’s cheek; Jeff swats it away and gives Evan a little shove, trying to get some space. Evan doesn’t budge.

“You piss me off sometimes, man,” Evan says, his voice even. “What’re you trying to do? Curl up under the porch like a dog and wait to die?”

Jeff laughs, all jagged edges. “What is this, an intervention? Jessa’s gone--”

“Alex isn’t,” Evan says. Just that, but Jeff stops arguing. That’s the trouble with knowing people so long. 

They look at each other for a long few seconds. Evan smells like antiseptic, and under that, some soap from the gym where he works. Jeff exhales, nods that he hears Evan if not exactly that he agrees to what Evan’s asking him.

Evan’s asking him to live. To go on. A minute, an hour, a day. To go on and on while the world throws stones. It feels like Jeff’s life has been nothing but going on since his parents died. Maybe since Vinnie suggested a fitness web series might be fun. Jeff knows he had a life before he was just coping, but he can’t remember it. It’s receding like the highway in the rearview, like the color of his mother’s eyes. 

It’s terrible and it’s unfair. But it’s nothing Alex asked for, either. 

Alex is learning too much from Jeff’s coping skills, or lack thereof. Alex hid that he was bleeding to death, metaphorically and literally, and Jeff let him. Jeff _let_ him. 

If he can’t inflict another death on Alex, he has to go on. No other choice. 

Slower, Jeff nods again. This time he’s agreeing. “Go home, Ev. We’re all right.”

The cage of Evan’s arms eases up around Jeff. It occurs to Jeff after the fact that Evan was pinning him. A submission hold, he thinks, and pushes the thought away.

“Nah,” Evan says. He noses his way into the crook of Jeff’s neck, making room for himself. Their bodies press awkwardly together, Evan sprawled on Jeff like he’s a bony mattress. Jeff shifts to accommodate him, Evan’s thigh slipping between his. Jeff’s shirt rucks up a little, and he shivers at the cold slither of Evan’s wallet chain against his belly. 

Vinnie and Evan are careless with affection, and they’ve taught Jeff a little of that language. They tussle and pile on each other, they give hugs and piggyback rides and shoves, but they don’t watch movies like this. 

(Jeff can’t say they never touch like this. They did once. Stolen bottle of tequila. The sex was rough and fast and good, not even kissing. The ring of bruises on his bicep, where Evan bit to muffle himself, took weeks to fade. The strength of Evan’s body, so unlike the curvier softer women Jeff’s always preferred, the way Evan could hold him down so easy... yeah. Jeff can’t say they never did this before.)

It’s unfair to Jessa. But Jessa is dead.

If he tries to be careful, he’ll lose his nerve. Jeff knots his fingers too hard in Evan’s shirt. He turns his head away from the light, seeking Evan’s mouth. Their breaths cross, humid in the close quarters. Jeff’s too hungry, they’re both too used to leading a kiss; the first two kisses are misfires, their mouths jagging without connecting. Frustrated, Jeff growls and starts to pull back.

Evan palms Jeff’s throat, his thumb hot pressure against the pulse. Jeff hitches in breath, surprised by his own reaction. While he’s off his guard, Evan kisses him. 

Jeff’s thought of Evan kissing him, but he expected bruising or biting. Not this, holding him by the throat and yet kissing him sweetly. Gentle with him.

Jeff thinks seriously about shoving Evan off the couch. After one kiss, though, he feels like he can breathe. He relaxes, opens his mouth, deepens the kiss. He forces his fist to unclench, spreading his open hand across Evan’s back, stroking him down. 

Evan bleeds warmth. Jeff is shivering, still. He bites Evan’s lip. Evan shudders, flexes his fingers on Jeff’s throat, blunt nails pressing. Fumbling, Jeff tangles his fingers in Evan’s hair and pulls. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying for, to get leverage or just express his approval, but it works. Evan growls and seems to surge into him all at once, the kiss going bruising-hot and wetter. 

Jeff spreads his legs under Evan, trying to get him closer. The strength of his want is a little embarrassing, he’s panting into Evan’s mouth, but he can’t stop. He’s desperate. He’s drowning. Evan is holding him by the throat and he’s giving it up.

With a dirty roll of his hips, Evan slots between Jeff’s open legs. Jeff can feel hard dick against his inner thigh, so close, and he whines. He doesn’t mean to. 

“Yeah,” Evan breathes, “I gotcha.”

The first filthy-slow thrust makes them both groan. They’re together in this, the craziness upon them. Jeff tries to reach down to unzip himself or Evan, get a little breathing room, but Evan pins his wrist above his head. 

“Oh fuck,” is shocked out of Jeff’s throat. “Fuck.”

“Yeah?”

“C’mon. Harder.”

When Jeff flexes his fingers, testing Evan’s grip, Evan tightens it. Jeff can feel the bones grind in his wrist. He moans, throbbing all over. People will ask questions, later, but later isn’t now. Now Evan is holding him by the throat and wrist. Now the bruises shaped like Evan’s fingers are rising, now the want eclipsing all the ugliness inside him.

Jeff puts his free hand on Evan’s shoulder, scrabbling, digging his nails in. He rocks up against Evan, riding the brutal line of his dick. 

Their hips press, tight tight tight, grinding so that it almost hurts. Neither of them wanting to give. They find a rhythm like that, friction, both of them gasping breath. Jeff can feel the leak of precome against his boxers, he can smell the oily bitterness he’d tasted at the head of Evan’s cock. He’s trembling. His head hurts, probably protesting that all Jeff’s blood is throbbing in his dick. He feels dizzy, he feels crazy. Evan holds him down to the earth.

“Shh,” Evan whispers, “fuck, you’re so fucking hot, gotta keep quiet, shh...” 

Jeff bites his mouth for his trouble, but lets Evan muffle him with kiss after kiss. Drugging, hungry kisses. He’s unraveling. The grind of his hips gets sloppier, uneven. “Evan,” he blurts out, breaking on the word. 

Evan grits out, “You gonna ride it out like that on my dick, baby?”

When Jeff comes, it’s punched out of him. It’s like being hit by a car; he cries out once, can’t help it, and then Evan kisses him quiet again. Jeff shudders his way down, breath hitching as orgasm gives way to oversensitivity. It’s as intense, Evan is rutting against him, dirty as before. Dirtier. Now he can appreciate the sounds Evan makes, the fine shivering of his body. 

Evan ducks out of the kiss in the last moments, pressing his hot face against Jeff’s shoulder. Jeff can feel him panting, his slack and open mouth. He rubs Evan’s back in slow circles, like sex is a fever Evan can sweat out.

“I want to unzip your jeans,” Jeff murmurs. “I want you to come on me.”

Hissing like he’s scalded, Evan lets go of Jeff’s throat. He fumbles a hand down. Jeff hears him open his jeans. In the interest of helpfulness, Jeff yanks Evan’s shirt out of the way. He can’t see between them, but he hears the wet slap as Evan starts to jerk himself. Evan curses. The head of Evan’s cock drags slickly across Jeff’s belly, and Jeff can’t help groaning, and that seems to be enough. Evan squeezes Jeff’s wrist tighter as he starts to come, painting stripes of heat on Jeff’s skin. Jeff feels like he can breathe easier then.

On the comedown, Evan shakes like he’s dying. Even when Evan relaxes his grip on Jeff’s wrist, Jeff holds onto him. He drags a quilt off the back off the couch to cover them both. 

Evan kisses Jeff’s neck. Beneath the blanket, he rubs his cooling spunk into Jeff’s skin. 

“Dude,” Jeff grumbles. But he’s pleased in a half-lidded way, and bumps his head against Evan’s. 

“We gotta get up before Alex wakes up,” Evan says. 

Jeff grunts, agreeing. Neither of them move. After a while, Evan turns his head to look at the TV. Jeff does, too. The movie has reached the point where the hospital burns down.

“Thanks,” Jeff says. When Evan snorts, he adds, “For Alex, I mean. For coming to help him. For waking me up. Thanks.”

“No problem, brother. That’s what I’m here for.” The movie flames cast strange shadows on Evan’s face. He smiles. “I love this part.”   
***  
 _You think your heart's dead? Mostly, but not yet. You think your body's broken? Not even close. But that doesn't matter, does it? 'Cause you figure, "I won't care. Do it. Cut me open, HABIT, gut me like a fish. Cut off my fingers, chew 'em in front of me. I won't care, won't give a shit. I won't scream, I won't beg, I won't cry." But you will. They always do. And in that moment, I'll be there to piss in your wounds, and to burn you alive. You think you're untouchable?_

 _Not even God can hide from me._  
***  
Jeff wakes up as the Rake climbs on top of him. 

He doesn’t open his eyes ( _his eye_ ) but he knows the Rake by its smell. That fetid feral smell rides higher than the stink of Jeff’s body dying. There’s meat on its breath. 

A day ago, Jeff couldn’t have imagined a horror like this; he would’ve recoiled. Now, HABIT has shown him worse things. Done worse things with Evan’s hands. There’s nothing left inside Jeff to feel horror anymore. He’s found the other side.

(Deep inside his head, there is someone shrieking on and on.)

Even the pain is eclipsed. He’s going into shock. One lung’s deflated, he’s slit open, he’s bled out like a deer. His animal body beats on and on but he’s gone from it, whatever was Jeff, whatever could be called the mind or soul. 

(liar liar liar)

He is with Jessa and Alex and Jessie and his mother and his father and Evan and he is happy. He can’t feel a thing. 

(liar liar liar)

His arms are open. He’s nailed to something, the dry scent of bark, a tree. He can feel the thick bubbling in his side where HABIT pierced him slow. 

HABIT is humming. ‘Deck the Halls.’ There’s a dry tearing sound, like duct tape being peeled from the roll.

The Rake’s breath ratchets thickly. Its talons sink into Jeff’s shoulders as it steadies itself. A little more blood patters to the ground like rain. Something wet-thick touches his cheek as the Rake laps clean the gore of his ruined eye. There’s a high thin ringing in Jeff’s ears. 

HABIT puts a strip of duct tape across his mouth, its gluey smell under his nose. The mousy huff of his breaths through his nose seem very loud to him, but HABIT doesn’t hear it.

His fingers hurt above the stump, like the ghost of him feels pain. Still, always, will feel pain. Forever. Amen. There is nothing but pain. The black spaces between the stars are pain. That explains the universe. He was always here, beneath HABIT’s knife, and everything else was the illusion. 

He wants Alex to help him up from the ground. Give me my hat, Alex will say, and they will laugh, and HABIT will cut and cut and cut, HABIT will find him there, HABIT will always find him. 

Hallowed be its knife. 

“Move it, Snoopy,” HABIT says, all good humor. “Things to do, bitches to kill. Think I ought to bring a coat-hanger?”

The Rake pauses, snuffling at Jeff. Breathing the life on him, the stubborn beating heart. 

“Leave it,” HABIT says, sounding for all the world like it’s coaxing a Lab away from the squirrel. “Leave it... c’mon, you dumb fuck.”

HABIT kicks the Rake off of him, with the squishing rotten impact. It still has Jeff in its grip, sunk deep in him, and only being nailed to the tree keeps Jeff upright. He wrenches loosely in the restraint, wounds tearing further, nothing stringing him together but sinew and gristle and all that gristle _screams_. 

Pain is ink poured through the insulating cotton of shock. It finds him there, cowering, and blots him out.

He doesn’t die.

His heart is a clock with last seconds ticking, unable to stop, waiting. Waiting. 

Wait. 

His heart is the torturer. 

Wait.

Extinguished, he breathes. His eye is half-open, it seems, onto only night. Tree branches above him. HABIT takes its dog and goes. The sputter of a car engine. Quiet. Quiet. 

Wait.

A flashlight beam penetrates the darkness.   
***  
He wakes up to the steady beating of a heart monitor. 

He lies still for a while, eyes closed. His thoughts are slow waves lapping at the shore, eroding his sleep. He knows that monitor, he’s been listening to it for a long time at the edge of awareness. He’s rocked by the monotony of the beep. 

No one speaks. No one hurts him. No HABIT, no Rake, no sirens.

Somewhere he hears the rattle of a gurney. A hospital. 

He opens his eyes.

One eye opens, lashes gluey. He blinks at the white ceiling, trying and trying the other, and remembers it’s gone. The realization is muffled beneath what he’s learning are some excellent drugs. The pain is dull and low, an ache inside the marrow like grief. 

Somebody turns a page beside the bed. He turns his head on its leaden neck. There’s a breathing tube; the tape pulls his overgrown stubble. He doesn’t even feel its sting. Really excellent drugs. His body is a slab without complaints.

There are two people by the bed, it turns out. One is a stranger, a guy. One is Stephanie. Steph is sleeping with her head propped against the wall, so like Alex that it pierces through the drugs to Jeff’s heart.

His name is Jeff. His brother is dead. He survived. The wrongness of that hurts.

Steph’s so pregnant. Jeff hopes like hell that the baby inside her never meets its father. He tries to reach for her, involuntarily. 

The man glances up, drawn by the motion. Blinks. “Jeff? Hey. Hi. You’re not supposed to be awake for another couple days. You had, uh, a lot of surgeries.”

That’s no surprise to Jeff, given what HABIT did to him. The drugs swallow any emotion he might’ve had about it. Jeff opens his hand, palm up, trying to communicate with a breathing tube that he’s heard the guy.

“I’m a friend of Steph’s. A hunter. I’m sorry I didn’t hear about this before.” The guy touches Jeff’s arm, lightly, not holding him. He’s all big sad eyes. His expression is sympathetic, killingly sincere. Jeff believes that he really is sorry. His huge hand is calloused like Jeff’s father, like he’s spent a lifetime with guns. “My name’s Sam Winchester. Slender Man... I’m here to help you kill it.”

Slow and bloodthirsty, Jeff manages to smile.


End file.
